NEW YORK—New data from Nielsen’s The Gauge, shows that broadcast viewership came roaring back in September as football drove an unprecedented monthly spike in viewing of broadcast programming.
Time spent watching broadcast programming shot up 20% month-over-month (compared to +3% across all TV) to generate an impressive gain of 3.2 share points, Nielsen reported.
That was the largest monthly increases in volume and share for any category in The Gauge since tracking began in May 2021. On top of that, broadcast concluded September with 22.3% of overall television viewing, which put it slightly ahead of the cable category on an unrounded basis for the first time ever in The Gauge, the researchers reported. (When the shares are rounded to one decimal, cable and broadcast tied at 22.3%.)
The record jump for broadcast was attributable to NFL and college football, as sports viewership tripled to represent 33% of broadcast’s total in September, versus 11% in August. In fact, 15 telecasts this month—all NFL games, across CBS, FOX and NBC—outpaced last month’s most-watched telecast, with September’s biggest audience more than doubling it.
On cable, sports viewership increased by 11% in September, and NFL games also dominated the category’s most-watched telecasts. The top five cable telecasts this month included four Monday Night Football games on ESPN, plus the first international NFL game of the season on NFL Network. The primary driver of September cable viewing, however, was news, which increased 9% and represented over a quarter of the category’s viewing total, the researchers said.
Notably, viewing gains for broadcast and cable were driven primarily by younger audiences, indicating strong engagement with the expanded sports slate. The largest monthly increases for both categories came from 25-34 year-olds, as broadcast viewing among that group climbed 65%, and cable viewing was up 16%.
Streaming continued to dominate TV usage and owned 45.2% of total watch-time in September. The impact of football extended into streaming this month as well, most notably with Amazon Prime Video. The streamer notched its most-watched NFL Thursday Night Football game ever on the platform on September 11, as the Commanders-Packers matchup generated over 3 billion minutes viewed.
Nielsen also reported that Roku remained the number one most watched FAST channel.
As summer ended, there was a reduced number of billion-minute titles in Nielsen’s weekly Streaming Top 10, where a streaming-heavy July saw 18 titles exceed one billion weekly viewing minutes, compared to 10 titles in September.
Although YouTube continued to feel the back-to-school impact from 6-17 year-olds, declining 2% versus August, it remained the most-watched streaming platform and represented 12.6% of television viewing in September.
The data for the September 2025 interval spanned four weeks, from 09/01/2025 through 09/28/2025, Nielsen said.
